


Apartment 1206

by chimosa



Series: Apartment [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domestic, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2442455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimosa/pseuds/chimosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Still, as prepared as Will has tried to be for this moment- for whatever godawful madness Hannibal might have waiting for him- he isn’t prepared for what he finds in apartment 1206.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apartment 1206

It takes seven years for Will Graham to finally find Hannibal Lecter.

After the blood bath he left behind in Baltimore, Hannibal disappeared so expertly it had taken Will a year before he got his first solid lead. That trail had gone nowhere, but the next had led Will to an empty Italian villa with priceless Renaissance artwork lining the walls (artwork the Italian government was eager to reclaim). After that it was Japan, and then Kyrgyzstan, and then, most frustrating of all, a small house in Surrey where Will was greeted by a mug of tea on the kitchen table, the steam mocking Will as it curled towards the ceiling. 

But finally, Will had tracked Lecter all the way back to the United States, to a high rise in TriBeCa, of all places. 

The doorman lets him in easily enough, though Will’s wallet is fifty dollars poorer for it. The elevator shoots Will up to the twelfth floor and Will passes though an antiseptically modern hallway until he finds apartment 1206. He draws his gun, cocking it as his hand softly tries the doorknob.

Unlocked.

Of course it is; Hannibal always did keep his doors unlocked. 

The building is so new the hinges don’t betray Will with a sound as the door whispers open. He can see daylight streaming in from a floor-to-ceiling window across the apartment, but the entryway he’s in is narrow and he’s careful not to get too excited, to step too quickly in case there is some alcove or corner that will give Hannibal the upper hand. 

Still, as prepared as Will has tried to be for this moment- for whatever godawful madness Hannibal might have waiting for him- he isn’t prepared for what he finds in apartment 1206.

“Ah, Will. So glad you could join us. Please,” Hannibal says, waving politely to a space already prepared with a warm breakfast and what looks like a cappuccino.

“I know how often you forget to eat when you are working, so I thought I’d have something ready for when you arrived.”

Will stares dumbly, his gun still raised.

“Come, now: sit. And please, put your gun away. You wouldn’t want to be rude.” His tone is as open and guileless as their last sessions had been, when there were no more secrets between them, except for all that was intentionally left unspoken. 

Before everything went to hell. 

As prepared as he has tried to be for this moment, for subverting whatever mind games Hannibal Lecter was sure to have in store for him, Will is so utterly shocked he does as he’s told.

“I hope you like quiche lorraine. It used to be one of Sienna’s favorites, but apparently her palate has recently undergone a change.”

“It hasn’t _changed_ ,” a small blonde clearly enunciates from across the table. “Don’t you _know_ what eggs are made of?”

“I stand corrected: she has developed a moral opposition to quiche.”

“Baby chickens,” the girl turns to Will, earnestly appealing to him with eyes that are dark and terribly familiar. “ _Dead_ baby chickens.”

“Eat,” Hannibal prods, though whether it is to Will or the little girl rhythmically kicking the legs of the table is unclear. 

They both do as they’re told.

***

As it turns out, Saturday mornings are Ballet Days.

Will watches silently as Hannibal gently brushes the little girl’s hair until the sunlight picks up flecks of gold in the silken strands. It’s surreal to watch the man who so casually slit Abigail Hobbs’ throat seven years ago expertly twisting a six year old’s hair into a bun.

Sienna, for her part, has taken it upon herself to catch Will up to speed with everything that is happening in her life. Will now knows that she is six, in first grade, and has earned four stripes on her belt in karate.

Now she is treating Will to a detailed description of all her favorite characters from My Little Pony. He watches as Hannibal secures the bun on her head, bobby pins sticking out of his mouth.

“-- but of _course_ my favorite favorite favorite is Rainbow Dash. She’s blue and has a little rainbow on her side, which makes her the best one. Of course, since she’s the best she’s _also_ Lucy’s favorite, too. Lucy is my best friend. And once we both brought our Rainbow Dashes to school and got them mixed up and we almost didn’t know who’s was whose until _I_ remembered that I had given my Rainbow Dash a bath with lavender soap a few weeks ago and so we smelled them and even though it was a very faint smell, we still could smell it. See?” 

She buries her nose into her stuffed toy’s flank and breathes deep.

“Ahhhhh. Here, you try,” she says and before Will can so much as blink he suddenly has an embroidered rainbow an inch from his nose. Politely he inhales.

“Well?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says unsteadily. “I can smell the lavender soap.”

Sienna is satisfied as she pulls the toy back into her arms. “Told ya.”

***

“Where did she come from?” Will hisses to Hannibal, careful to keep his voice down as they are surrounded on all sides by ballet moms. 

Through the window Will can see Sienna lined up alongside twelve other little girls, each holding on to the barre in front of them, pointing their feet and bending their small bodies in earnest and ungainly movements.

“I came by her in the usual fashion,” Hannibal says, his eyes never moving from their watch on Sienna. 

“Where’s her mother?”

“Unfortunately, Dr. du Maurier and I had a difference of opinion as to how Sienna should be raised.”

He doesn’t have to ask any further; Will is all too familiar with what happens when one has a difference of opinion with Hannibal Lecter.

The minutes tick by and the mundane sounds-- of the parents gossiping, of a baby crying, of the piano music trickling out from the dance studio where the girls were now taking turns jumping over a book in the middle of the floor-- fill the empty spaces between them. 

Finally Will asks the only question he has left:

“Why?”

Hannibal turns his head, catching Will’s reluctant gaze with his own, self-satisfied one.

“Because it’s what you could never have.”

***

Is it any surprise that Will gets sucked into Lecter’s fabricated domesticity? After all, it’s laughably obvious it has all been carefully calibrated to appeal to Will, twice-denied fatherhood at Hannibal Lecter’s hands.

And what Hannibal taketh away, he can also provide.

The question as to why TriBeCa becomes clear the first week Will spends in apartment 1206. If you want to raise a child in Manhattan and have plenty of money to burn, TriBeCa is where you do it. There are children’s classes and toy stores and terrifyingly chic children’s clothing places on every block. The playgrounds are filled with nannies clucking at each other in every language imaginable.

That Will has no business in this world is painfully obvious.

Twice he’s questioned by well-meaning police officers that are so sure he’s some sort of playground pervert it takes Sienna tearing herself away from the monkey bars to vouch for Will for them to finally leave him alone.

The irony that Hannibal Lecter-- cannibal and murderer-at-large-- _does_ belong is not lost on him.

Slowly, though, Will finds he is accepted into this world of Ballet Days and Karate Days and PTA meetings. When Sienna cuts off the pony tail of her once-best-friend-now-sworn-enemy Lucy, it is Will that sits across from the school’s Director and swears upside down and sideways it will never happen again. 

When Lucy and Sienna are suddenly best friends again, it is Will that sits across from Lucy’s texting babysitter as the girls paint ceramic fairies during their first playdate since The Incident.

Through it all, however, Will is careful not to relax too fully into this new world. He carries the scars- physical and otherwise- that give evidence to Hannibal’s capricious nature. If Hannibal spends his time lately acting like the doting father, Will is careful to remember that that’s all it is. 

An act.

Every once and a while, when they three are all alone in the apartment, when they’re all showing the effects of another long day in a city that tries your every last nerve, when Sienna is coming down off a sugar binge and screaming her head off... that’s when Will sees it.

The crack in the facade. 

That moment when Hannibal’s eyes will become a little too cold-blooded. His face will become a little too solicitous. 

When his fingers run a little too familiarly across the knife he is using to prepare another supper that Sienna won’t eat.

That’s when Will does the only thing in his power to do.

He will wrap his arms around the other man’s waist, press a kiss behind Hannibal’s ear, and, in a voice so low that the little girl across the room throwing her toys can’t possibly hear, starts to list all the things he intends to do to Hannibal Lecter when the lights are off and their clothes are, too. 

It’s a truce of sorts; one that Will knows won’t last forever.

But for now it will do.


End file.
